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Re: birds and/or/with dino's
David Marjanovic wrote:
> What should really have been done would have been to
> abandon the word Dinosauria and to make up a new term for
> the entire clade, birds included. But it's too late for
> that.
Yep, that might have been a good idea. Something along the lines of "Dinoaves"
- in the same way that the new name "Cetartiodactyla" was coined when whales
(Cetacea) were put inside Artiodactyla.
However, it's entirely academic now, so we'd all better get used to the bird
clade (Avialae or Aves) being a subset of Dinosauria. It will happen, in the
fullness of time. Eventually, placing birds inside Dinosauria will seem as
natural as having bats inside Mammalia. Phylogenetically speaking, there's no
difference.
> > Estelle Bourdon's prophaetornithid studies look as if the tropicbirds
> > could make a good missing link - very autapomorphic, but apart from
> > that they look as if they'd link waders to the
> > stork-albatross-and-whatnot group.
>
> One word: Metornithes.
Do you mean "Metaves"? Metornithes was erected by Perle &c (1993) as a clade
that includes all birds except _Archaeopteryx_, back when _Mononykus_ was
thought to be a bird. Since then, I've occasionally seen Metornithes used as a
more inclusive theropod clade, in keeping with Chiappe's definition
(_Mononykus_ + Neornithes). Chiappe (1995) considered _Mononykus_ a bird; but
now that alvarezsaurids are outside the bird clade, Metornithes can be co-opted
for the clade that includes alvarezsaurids and birds. This goes against the
intent of the original definition, but what can you do?
Cheers
Tim